House of Whipcord Needs an Eviction Notice

House of Whipcord
Media Blasters // 1974 // 102 Minutes // Rated R

Reviewed by Steve Evans

“Many young girls have entered these gates—none have yet come out!” ~ From the promotional poster.

Opening Shot…

Now and again, it's fun to tee off on a really bad movie. Welcome to today's installment of Cinema Uprising.

Nothing like the screaming tagline would suggest, House of Whipcord is actually a muddled meditation on stuffy English morality, circa 1974. A failed satire of aging British bluenoses and their obsession with law and order, the film is poorly photographed, with often unintelligible cockney dialogue delivered by amateurs. Here is that rarest of exploitation films—utterly pretentious without even the redeeming values of gratuitous nudity and violence that might recommend it to the grindhouse crowd.

A Bit of Plot
A gorgeous French model (Penny Irving, Vampira) finds herself a captive in the House of Whipcord, where disturbed old women dish out corporal punishment (off screen) and random torture to “immoral” girls in an effort to redeem them. Her crime? Posing for magazines.

Robert Tayman (The Internecine Project) plays Mark E. Desade (ho, ho), a young English dandy (a fancy lad wearing lace-up shirts!) who seduces women and lures them to their doom at the House of Whipcord under pretense of meeting his parents. Dad’s a senile old man. Ma and her crew of crusty bitches keep the whips and shackles well-oiled in the dungeon for spankings, lite bondage, and compulsory Bible reading (hence the shackles, one supposes).

The captive young women are allowed only three strikes on their road back to righteousness. One mistake earns solitary confinement, a second infraction results in a flogging; three strikes, you’re dead.

Clearly not hip to his own hypocrisy, Desade keeps the crazy harridans who run The House of Whipcord stocked with nubile beauties who must stand trial before dad — a sightless old codger (blind justice — get it?). Whippings, rats, and a bit of tame T&A round out the offerings as the film drags along to a tidy yet humdrum conclusion.

Historical Context and (In)significance
Directed by cheapo auteur Pete Walker (Schizo), this picture fails on almost every level. As exploitation trash, the T&A and shock quotient is so low it barely registers. As satire, whatever point Walker intended to make is lost under ponderous pontificating by terminally untalented actors.

The film falters even at the level of basic craftsmanship. Walker liked to shoot day-for-night, but he forgot to tell the cinematographer when to stop dialing down the damned f-stop on the camera lens. Most of the time this picture is so dark that no one can tell who’s doing what or to whom, and forget about why.

The supporting players act like they suffer from narcolepsy. The music could induce a migraine. In order for the story even to function at the most fundamental level of credibility, we are asked to believe in characters so mind-numbingly stupid as to be almost deserving of their fate.

Let me be clear: House of Whipcord does not transcend its limitations to reach those rarified B-movie heights of so-bad-it’s-good. The film is just a disappointing waste of time. For real terror, sick gross-outs and fascinating subtext in the disreputable “kidnapped and tortured” subgenre of horror films, rent Eli Roth's Hostel, instead. That’s the real deal.

What's on the Disc, Steve?
Not so much, I'm tellin' ya. The anamorphic transfer is mediocre, pocked here and there with flecks of dirt and scratches lingering from the source materials. Audio options include a new 5.1 mix, although the occasional, jolting “blaaaaat!” indicates something has gone very wrong with the original optical soundtrack.

Extras include a not-bad photo gallery and six trailers of other Walker films, including this one. Of the trailers, Die Screaming Marianne looks the most promising, if only for the presence of Susan George (Straw Dogs). Update: I have seen Die Screaming Marianne. As for my observation that it looks “the most promising,” well, I was wrong.

The Contrarian View
Director Walker acknowledges on the commentary track that he just wanted to make films and turn a profit, but didn’t have time to play the studio game. He’s refreshingly candid in his remarks and seems slightly bemused by the fuss his fans have made over his decidedly low-rent oeuvre through the years. This seems to be a case of a retired director coming to terms with the actual merit of a film completed half a lifetime ago: He had some fun, made a few pounds (this is a British picture, remember?), and moved on.

Coda
House of Whipcord is the work of a director whose ambitions exceed his abilities. Let’s give kudos for trying, especially on a wee budget. Still, this is worth no more than a rental, at best, and only then for die-hard students of psychotronic films who want to complete their education.

Sporadically creepy though ultimately dull, House of Whipcord cured my insomnia.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Youth Run Wild: A Double Feature of Exploitation Nonsense

“Over twenty thousand girls every year live this bitter story!” —Tag line from Unwed Mother

Good morning, beloved readers.

Check out this deuce of exploitation flicks about the social scourge of skipping school, getting nekkid, and making babies out of wedlock. Problem is, there's an utter lack of nekkidness in both films. Doesn't matter: The unintentional laughs are abundant. These two pictures deliver more hilarity by accident than many contemporary comedies produce on purpose.

Unwed Mother and Too Soon to Love are as much fun as a bad-movie addict should be allowed to have for $15. So pop a brew, grab a bag of popcorn, and settle down for 159 minutes of light acting, heavy moralizing, and cheapjack production values, all in service of an outrageous hypocrisy: These pictures condemn the very thing they promise to sell their teenage target audience. And that’s sex, baby. Wanton, unprotected, and especially unmarried sex. Let the good times roll. Hubba, hubba.

The plot clots

Cute Betty (Norma Moore) becomes an Unwed Mother after hanging out too often with Robert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., who was also a Teenage Caveman). Vaughn plays Don Bigelow (!), a sleazy gigolo (sorry, couldn't help it). Betty falls hard for this slick-haired Lothario. She's wooed, stewed, tattooed, and screwed—knocked up and abandoned—in rapid succession. Hiss! Don is a cad. Following an uncomfortable visit to a drunken abortionist, Betty decides to carry her baby and give up the child for adoption. She later has a change of heart that leads to heavy melodrama indeed.

Too Soon To Love is the second half of this insanely funny double feature. Cathy (Jennifer West) loves Jim (Richard Evans), who sells wieners and popcorn at the drive-in concession stand. They arrange a rendezvous during his work break. While watching a movie in the back seat of a friend's car and waiting for Jim to come around, Cathy fends off a sexual attack from Buddy (Hey! It's 23-year-old Jack Nicholson!). Jim leaps to the rescue, and the boys start to rumble. Bad-boy Buddy serves Jim a serious ass-kicking, which precipitates a lot of plot. Cathy feels sorry for Jim getting whupped and generally wants to demonstrate her love in more, um, earthy ways. Jim eagerly avails himself of these nocturnal delights, leading to impregnation, stress, and potential embarrassment for the young lovers. Cathy seeks a terminal solution from a vile abortionist, but runs away and attempts suicide. A distraught Jim resorts to stealing money so Cathy can see a "real" doctor. What's to become of these two juvenile lovebirds?

Production: How it all went down

Unwed Mother was directed by Walter Doniger, who turned 91 earlier this year. He also directed 173 episodes of television's Peyton Place, one of the first prime-time soap operas, so his penchant for ham-fisted melodrama apparently came naturally. Whenever Vaughn came onscreen, I was reminded of his tuff-talking television commercials, shilling for some ambulance-chasing law firm. He sounds so indignant and constipated in those commercials, just like his Teenage Caveman character, and in this silly film as oily Don, who has his way with Miss Betty. She practically swoons at his obvious pick-up lines. Girl, you shoulda known better.

And Lord, this does get better. The supporting feature on the disc, Too Soon to Love, marked the directorial debut of Richard Rush, who toiled in obscurity for decades before finally realizing the one masterpiece he had in him—The Stunt Man (1980). It's a safe bet that Rush is now retired, since it's been a dozen years since he last stepped behind a camera, directing the execrable The Color of Night. That film is remembered today (if at all) for giving the world an unwanted glimpse of Bruce Willis' detumescent pud. This could also be a metaphor for the director's career: He started out small, rose briefly, and then fell not with a bang but with a flaccid flop.

Too Soon to Love is worth a look if only to see a young Jack Nicholson and his wolf grin, chewing scenery. His now-legendary thespian skill is not on display in this B picture from 1960. Nicholson languished in trash like this, including several Roger Corman films, for a decade before catching fire with an Oscar-nominated supporting role in Easy Rider. (I wonder if Jack occasionally dusts off his copies of Too Soon to Love or The Crybaby Killer and gives 'em a nostalgic spin in his home theater up on Mulholland Drive?)

Video and audio are surprisingly crisp for a budget title. Production company VCI even delivers anamorphically enhanced transfers of both films. That's not to say this is a reference-quality presentation. Minimal technical competence went into capturing the original image and sound, so we can't expect too much to pop out the other end on a DVD release. It's a bit like polishing mud, but VCI is to be commended for the effort. These pictures probably look as good as they did on their initial release nearly half a century ago.

As per their custom, the good folks at VCI have also dug up a few choice extras to trick out these subpar pictures. Goodies include original theatrical trailers; a slide show of photos, posters, and other print advertising; cast and crew biographies; and a lively audio commentary during Unwed Mother by assistant director Robert Justman.

Why would you watch these pictures?

The best exploitation films possess a weird, schizophrenic quality that reeks of hypocrisy. Unwed Mother and Too Soon to Love are no exception. These movies pander to prurient curiosity and base instincts in order to fill theaters with ticket buyers, then justify their existence with harsh moralizing against the very social problem being exploited. That way, if the producers were ever challenged in court, they could point to the social significance of the "message." Famous schlock director Edward D. Wood, Jr., was a master of this bait-and-switch tactic. He wrote (but did not direct) The Violent Years, which is a heart-stoppingly funny tale of girl gangs and coed pajama parties with heavy petting. If you enjoy the features on this disc, The Violent Years would be a logical next step. Also, anything starring Arch Hall, Jr. But be forewarned: Unwed Mother and Too Soon to Love might just be gateway drugs on the road to a terminal bad-cinema addiction.

These pictures caused my bad-movie gang to convulse with laughter and spill their beer. In some alternate universe, this probably merits a near-perfect rating for a pair of seriously imperfect trash flicks.

Copyright © 2008 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.